Z{DOCKS} AV{DOCK} iPod & iPhone Audio-Video Dock Review

This Audio-Video Dock from the aptly named Z{DOCKS} company combines form and function with this feature rich and good looking docking station for Apple´s media players (iPods) and phones (iPhones).

A Closer Look & Installation

A Closer Look

The AV{DOCK} is not a lightweight docking, it won’t move/slide around easily thanks to its weight and anti-slip rubber at the bottom.

Above the “SIEBEN technology” logo you can see the IR receiver;

At the bottom there’s a connection for USB charger cable, gold plated composite video/audio connectors as well as s-video out.

The remote control is quite small as there only a few functions available, the most essential ones for audio playback: next/previous, play & pause:

There’s nothing much further to it visually wise, the device is easy to install, after hooking up your audio and video cables you are good to go.

Testing Gear & Plugging In Your iPod/iPhone

For our tests we had access to two Apple products:

iPod Classic 160GB

iPhone 3G 8Gb

Apple products are pretty good looking, to keep them somewhat scratch free we use snap on cases, either from hard plastic or soft rubber:

iPod Classic 160GB with soft rubber case cover

iPhone 3G 8Gb with hard plastic case cover

This is where a small annoyance roars its head, with the case covers applied you can’t get them to fit into the AV{DOCK}, this is not the first accessory to exhibit this issue, as there are plenty of hands-free car kit and other docks which build to fit the exact Apple product and not a millimeter bigger in size.

iPod Classic 160GB

iPhone 3G 8Gb

Once you remove the cover the problem goes away instantly; depending on how easily your case cover is applied this hurdle is a small or big one. With our choice of covers we found the rubber cover to be more resilient to being removed/installed, the plastic cover started to show some usage signs after several removals/installations.

iPod Classic 160GB

iPhone 3G 8Gb

A few months we bought another dock which is only meant for iPod and only has audio (by default) out; it’s less fancy, but the device has no issue fitting iPod with/without case: